“The phrase "the violent bear it away" fascinated the 20th century Irish-American storyteller Flannery O'Connor, who used it as the title of one of her novels. O'Connor's surname connects her to an Irish royal family descended from Conchobor (pronounced "Connor"),… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share
“The phrase "the violent bear it away" fascinated the 20th century Irish-American storyteller Flannery O'Connor, who used it as the title of one of her novels. O'Connor's surname connects her to an Irish royal family descended from Conchobor (pronounced "Connor"), the prehistoric king of Ulster who was foster father to Cuchulainn and "husband" of the unwilling Derdriu. In the western… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share
“In becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life…Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
Wherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph, just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waists their enemies' heads. Where they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile,… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share
How real is history? Is it just an enormous soup so full of disparate ingredients that it is uncharacterizable? — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
The Irish innovation was to make all confession a completely private affair between penitent and priest - and to make it as repeatable as… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
“They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
“We followed the rump of a misguiding woman. It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
“Cujus regio, ejus religio (Whose region it is, his is the religion).” — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
(The festival) was awfully impersonal and abstract and there was something really gloomy about it, ... That's when I first started thinking about the… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
“We will never make it under our own stem. Having made this connection, Augustine falls apart. What he describes at this point in the… — Thomas Cahill Copy Share Image
